


Ghosts of Forgotten Souls

by montes-carpatus (Carpathyah)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Permanent Injury, Smoking references, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 12:49:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11691975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carpathyah/pseuds/montes-carpatus
Summary: When her grave was found empty, like the others, he added her name to the people he had to find, and kill.





	Ghosts of Forgotten Souls

**Author's Note:**

> Even the names change.

After the fall of the Overwatch Headquarters located in Zurich, many people were lost. Among the dead, the names of Jack Morrison, Gabriel Reyes, and Angela Ziegler escaped the lips of former members as they laid flowers onto empty graves.

In the tunnels of Dorado, a shadow of a man walked next to a smaller, purple haired woman. Years, had he been tracking down Jack Morrison and Ana Amari, and he only failed to kill any of them.

He turned his attention to Doctor Angela Ziegler, who had presumably died in the destruction. Her body was never found, along with her suit and staff. He believed that she burned in the fire and her ashes surrendered to the earth.  He visited her grave, many times after the incident. He cursed them for not putting her with her parents in her hometown in northern Switzerland and instead, next to his own tombstone in the capital.

While looking deeper into her files, he found her ending suspiciously active. A month after her funeral, her funds had disappeared from her account. He looked at where the money would’ve gone but it was a cash transaction.

The jump in his chest was enough to feel human again. He thought nothing of it until it occupied his mind with the idea that maybe she was alive. After all, Jack Morrison and Ana Amari were walking ghosts among the living.

“Y’know, I don’t understand why you’re so interested in this woman. She was just another Overwatch tool,” she commented as she searched through files and more files in her archive on Overwatch members. She had found rough blueprints of her staff and her wings, and to her it was nothing special. She had found old hospital reports of former Overwatch agents, but nothing that would hint to her being alive.

“I can assure you she’s alive,” he groaned. She sighed.

“Whatever you say, I’ll get what you need,” she said.

He was never one to sleep, but it shook him to get a call at 2 in the morning by Sombra.

When he got to her, she wore some casual sweatpants and a t-shirt in her control room. The walls were covered with open tabs of information. There were mugs of coffee scattered along the floor next to her chair.

“I called you because I got a lead on your lady, Boss. She cleaned up her tracks pretty damn well, almost couldn’t find her. Do you recognize this face?”

She blew up a face of a young woman with shoulder length blond hair and bright blue eyes. It was Angela Ziegler, or she looked very much like her. His eyes went to her name, Doctor Catarina Hartmann, a surgeon at Notre-Dame De La Misericorde in Ajaccio, Corsica.

“Catarina Hartmann, no record of her until six months after the destruction of Overwatch, has a Doctorate degree from University of Geneva, in Biomedical Science. She was admitted to a hospital in Lyon, France four days after the dismantle. Yadda yadda, no birth certificate, no high school diploma, no credit card. That’s all I have on her. I have an address tied to her name.”

He began going through Sombra’s archive and search. Her presumed medical records showed severe fractures to her legs and bruising along the rest of her body. She tested positive for retrograde amnesia and showed biomedical engineered cell recovery. Patient was unresponsive for many weeks and did not remember prior to the accident.

His fingers shook as her swiped through the limited about of information. There weren’t any new pictures of her. No social media connections. She was an idea of a person that barely existed and he should congratulate her on being so hard to find.

“What are you going to do? Have some kind of grudge against her?” Sombra asked as she caught him silently staring at her picture.

“I have some business with her,” he responded as he left her room.

Corsica in late summer was humid and always slightly windy. Ajaccio was a busy town of students, and tourists outside the airport. During the night, he followed the shadows of the moon to a small house on the outskirts of town. The walls were painted a pale blue, and a yellow light shown from the balcony.

He sighed and hesitated, if it was really worth seeing her again. He thought about her hospital documents and her amnesia. Did it subside? Would she remember his aging face?

His shadow crept into an open window and followed a light humming sound up into the room. He stood in the doorway of her room. She was in a white dress, sitting in a chair, smoking a cigarette while she looked over to the ocean.

He took a step forward when she spoke, “I assume Talon sent you here to assassinate me. I figured this day would come, but truthfully, I have no defence.”

He was silent as she stood up from her chair. The sound of a cane against the floor echoed in the room. He watched her limp towards him; and to his eyes it was almost painful to watch.

“What happened to you?” he asked out loud. She crushed her cigarette in a nearby tray. She would glance over to the two guns that hung from his hip.

“Like you wouldn’t be able to take a guess, Mr. Talon Assassin. I’m a world renowned doctor. I saved myself from that mess of an organization.” She looked like she was in pain, standing up. “What do you need from me? What information do you want? I’m sure Talon would be able to make great use out of my old abilities.”

He didn’t reply and saw her nose crinkle in response.

“Well then, make it quick,” she urged,

Guilt overtook him and his hunger for human souls died as he looked at the fragile state of Angela Ziegler. He couldn’t bring his hand to his guns.

“No,” he started. “There has been change of plans.”

With big blue eyes she looked at him; almost tearing up in the corners from fear. She gulped as she anticipated an abduction, but he never twitched towards her.

He didn’t stay any longer and he turned his back on her and faded into the shadows. His chest hurt as he climbed back into the helicopter on the other side of the island. On his way back, he thought he could feel his hands sweat under the gloves. He cursed at himself for going soft on her.

“I’m sure she was an easy kill,” Sombra said as he arrived at the Talon headquarters. He didn’t respond as he walked passed her. “Wait, don’t tell me that you skipped out on this one too?”

He just kept walking with her trying to keep up beside him. “Gabe, c’mon.”

“There was nothing to be done,” he said. Sombra raised an eyebrow, trying to decipher what he meant by “nothing”.

Alone in the dark, his mind was busy with images and sounds of Angela. He loved her once, and if he thought too long, he might still love her in his empty heart. He can still feel her soft strands of hair between his fingers and the taste of her skin on his lips. His body floating in the emptiness of the room, his mind switched to thoughts of anger and revenge. Her aversion to war and death, was almost pitiful in a peacemaking organization. She pulled him away from conflict when she should’ve been the first to interfere. Her work was ungodly, and her wings were meant to be broken.

Deep in pit of rage, he found that even in his current being, that he could laugh about his own hypocrisy. It was his turn to play with death, and he might as well turn her witchcraft back on her.

It fuelled him to return to Corsica to finish what he started.

She might as well get used to being on the constant edge of death. She lit a cigarette in the early hours of the morning. The assassin had yet to return to her home and it left her awake at night. She thought of bringing out her staff to protect herself but that thing has been collecting dust in the back of her closet for years, and morally didn’t dare to touch it again. She tapped her nails onto her knee as she inhaled the nicotine that kept her somewhat more alert.

She needed glasses, she concluded, when she saw what seemed like black fog in the corner of her room. The moonlight shining behind her played with shadows, leaving her eyes to dart between objects quickly. Next to her sat her cane, her only source of physical protection from her attacker.

She felt a coldness surround her foot and before she can move, she felt a sharp clawed hand pull on her ankle towards the floor. With a quick move, and a nicotine rush, she grabbed onto her cane and tried hooking herself to anything she could pull towards before. The pain of her leg shocked up her spine as she fought with all her might.

It was no use, and with loud grunting, she was on her back in pain looking up at the same figure that visited her only a month before.

“I changed my plans too, you see, I’m not dying without a proper fight,” she groaned through the sharp pains in her leg. He pulled her off the ground from the front of her shift. She let her her legs dangle under her as she fought for air. Her cane slipped from her fingers and onto the floor with a loud echo.

“I too, can play with death,” he threatened as his grip tightened around her collar, putting some force on her neck.

“What do you want from me?” she asked as she tried to pull his wrists away from her throat. She tried kicking him but it only brought more pain to her.

“Your soul,” he replied as he dropped her to the floor to bring out his guns. She looked into the barrel as he hyperventilated, waiting for the blast of the bullet to give her a quick, painless death.. Her wait stuck to the sides of her face as she watched the gun shake in front of her.

“Tell me, if you are loyal to Talon, what happened to my home?” she gulped. “Morrison, Amari, and Gabriel Reyes. You must know what happened. Trade of information.

He did not reply while she moved to a position that would lessen the pain on her leg.

“My science, my research, you knew,” she accused. “You stole it from me when you infiltrated Blackwatch, and seeped into Overwatch.”

He vaguely remembered her spending long days in the research center during his days in Overwatch. Regenerative, self-healing, type of research. That staff of hers… He tried to keep his hands steady as youthful memories came back to him like a bullet to the brain.

Angela took an opportunity to strike and used her good leg to try to trip him. Her cane hit hard metal and soon, nothing at all. He had gone back into his smoke form. She watched the stream leave her apartment and she was alone again. She put her head in her hands and curled up into a ball. Her leg was in so much pain that she couldn’t find the want to cry. She sniffled and shook as she crawled across the floor to her night table where the bottle of pills usually sat.

Gabriel was torn, and he didn’t venture far from her apartment for the time being.

“Yo Gabe, are you still in Corsica?” Sombra said as she called his communicator. “She’s not worth it. We have some work for you here.”

Back at Talon, Gabriel went through files he never thought of going through: the nature of Talon’s want for Angela Ziegler. He found blueprints of her staff, which Sombra had for a long time. Her wings as well were on the list. The deeper he dug, the more his name came up in documents. Cryptic documents in Russian with diagrams of molecules and blood cells. An easy translation revealed papers leading up to the destruction of Overwatch headquarters. Some went as far back to Angela’s Doctorate thesis about the regeneration of human cells and how quick can first aid response be.

Soon he found buried deep in Talon’s database were medical documents about him. That they had secured Dr. Ziegler’s technology and began using it on himself. Pages, and pages, leading up to him joining Talon. Papers of other doctors twisting her science to make an invincible being. He was their creation, and he became the Reaper.

“It’s not Angela’s fault I’m a monster,” he mumbled under his breath as he processed the information that Talon had lied to him about their intentions to make him superhuman. He returned to his room later to undress and stare at himself in the mirror. His regeneration left his dark skin look like it was constantly scarred. His face was almost unrecognizable and then it shifted to a face he remembered when he thought about it hard enough. A dark, purple tinted smoke surrounded his being as he dissociated from the physical part of himself into the night he was.

The air was colder when he returned to Corsica, and for once, confliction wasn’t on his mind, but to reconnect with his former lover and find redemption in his murderous ways. He didn’t know how to go about it without putting her in shock, and instead hovered around the outskirts of the small village she called her new home.

She was asleep in her reading chair when he arrived, but she was wide awake as his body disintegrated by her feet. She was terrified, grabbing onto her cane for protection. She cried as she couldn’t look at him.

“Please, let me be, all I wanted was to help people. I don’t practice my science anymore, just, please, have mercy on me,” she cried. He reached out for her hand, not saying a word. She flinched hard as she felt the coldness touch her skin. He didn’t press further, but his stillness relaxed her.

“I’m not going to kill you,” he told her. She sniffled as she unclenched herself in relief. He lifted his hand to present his palm and she slowly put her hand in his.

The warmth was enough to dissolve him. It had been so so long that he was touch starved. He curled his hand around hers and it was enough to make her smile through the remaining tears.

She didn’t say anything, he just let himself envelope her and he wish, he wished he could show his face tonight but it would already be too much, for either of them. She yawned and her head hung from exhaustion. He picked her up and held her for a while until he figured he should let her sleep.

“ _Mein maskierter Mörder_ ”, she called him in German she felt his being enter the room on a cold December morning. “Talon. Do they care about you being here?”

“Not that I would care,” he answered. She smiled as she turned to face him.

“Very Talon-like of you,” she grinned as she limped over to the nearest chair.

The more Gabriel spent time with her, he saw the lines under her eyes, the pills on her nightstand and the gray that started to peak between blond strands. Some days, he waited for her to get home from work in the shadows of her kitchen as she kicked off her shoes and limped to the fridge to eat leftovers before going to bed.

“I abandoned my Overwatch work ever since,” she told him as she pulled a glass water bottle out of the fridge and went up to her room. He followed her at her feet like a protective animal. She was comfortable with him around. He didn’t have to speak as she usually had something to say to him anyways. “I kept my wings, and my staff for nostalgia purposes,” she chuckled. “What a hypocritical costume for me.”

She opened a capsule of pills and threw them w in her mouth before chugging some water. She set it down and began to undress from her scrubs. She smelled of alcohol and numbing agents. He got a glimpse of her leg in the yellow light. Her thigh was almost deformed, probably from having concrete or steel fall on her leg. Scars ran up and down her leg and it seemed permanently bruised in some places.

“Do they help?” he couldn’t help but ask.

“As much as modern painkillers and antidepressants can do,” she explained. “Keeps me asleep at night.”

Her showers were short, and while he had the time, he picked up the bottles and read all the labels. Some he knew exactly what they were and the rest were mysteries only known to her.

Soon enough, he heard her close the faucet and he quickly put back the bottles where they were. In a thick, warm white robe, she got out of her bathroom and tried drying her hair with a towel.

“Eventually, it will be my turn to ask you questions,” she said as she prepared for bed. Her hair was a wavy mess around her head and her face was slightly pink from the heat.

“Yeah,” he replied coldly.

He doubted Ana knew that Angela was alive. After all, Angela disappeared in the same way Ana did many years ago. Except, Angela didn’t become a mercenary, and settled on being a normal surgeon for the rest of her years. He almost wanted to find them again and shout that Angela was alive but it wouldn’t be good for either of them to know.

Instead, he stole all her files from Sombra and hid it in his own database. Talon already had everything they needed to know about her and he wanted her to live in peace. Sombra found her files under Angela Ziegler gone but she didn’t really bother inquiring about it.

“You loved her, didn’t you? ” she asked him when they were alone on a mission.

“That’s none of your business,” he growled in his microphone. She sighed, she knew he wasn’t going to be straight with her. Then again, she knew more about him than he did about himself. He tried to be tough, to be the fearless man he wanted to be. His mortal days weren’t far behind him and emotions had their way of coming back.

On a rainy Sunday morning, he found her still lying in bed with the covers up to her ears. He walked over to the bed quietly and put his hand lightly on her side.

“Sometimes, everything hurts,” she mumbled to his touch. She turned over to face him. She looked tired, and hazy. She brought her arms out from under the covers and dropped them to her sides. “On a scale of 1 to 10, how is your pain?” she asked with a hoarse, dry throat.

“10,” he confessed as his claws found her hand and held onto her. She fought to keep her eyes open and she would drift into short naps for the remainder of the day. The clouds had the time to open up to the night sky before he left her for the day.

In the sunlight of another time zone, he tried keeping his immortal heart from pushing him to see her again, for the third time that month. He had things to do, and he promised that once work was done he would go check on her.

“Show me your face, you know all my secrets, it’s your turn now,” she ordered one evening when he arrived. He was taken aback from the heartless greeting.

“It’s not the time,” he replied. She was angry.

“You’ve nearly assassinated me three times. You’re part of the organization that stole my entire life. I think it’s been time for a while,” she stood up from her chair and limped towards him. She grabbed tightly onto his coat. He could smell the tobacco and gin in her breath. She wasn’t supposed to be drinking, it conflicted with her medications. “Who are you?”

“Someone I hope you had forgotten,” he answered.

“No! No more half answers! I’ve had enough of this,” she shouted at him. He held her by the elbows to keep her balanced on her feet. “This isn’t fair!” Tears fell from the corners of her eyes as she tried to sober up better.

She reached up to touch his mask in the light of the setting sun. She ran her fingers around the sharp edges and then around the eye pieces. He let her hands lift it off his face. She quietly gasped as she held the mask in her hand. He was nervous, anticipated more screaming and crying. Her touch brought shivers to his body and he had to concentrate really hard to make his degeneration become more regenerative.

“Angela, I’m sorry,” he apologized as his face was revealed to her. She was speechless as she dropped the mask onto the floor. Her bottom lip trembled from surprise.

“You’re alive,” she yelped quietly. “Gabriel.” Her face changed from fear to smiles and back again.

“There is so much to tell you,” he said as he wrapped his arms around her waist. She cupped a hand over her mouth as she shed some tears. “Blackwatch, was-”

Her lips were on his as the sky turned into shades of purple and navy blue. It was indecisive at first and then she pulled away. She was warm and alive in front of him. Her eyes scanned his face in disbelief. Her fingers grazed over the scars in his skin and the strands of hair that he kept behind his ears. Her other hand traced the contour of his cold lips that hid behind a mustache and a beard. The few strands of silver reminded them that time had indeed passed a lot quicker than they liked. He cupped her hand as he leaned in for another kiss. It was tender, and gentle. She shook under his hands like a touch starved kitten.

“You fear me,” he spoke against her lips.

“No, no, fear is not a word to describe what I’m feeling right now,” she softly replied.

“What do you feel?”

“ _Erleichterung,_ we say in German,” she replied. The blue Mediterranean likeness in her eyes clashed with the alarming red of his. He could feel her heart beating quickly in her chest, as if her eyes didn’t reflect what was racing through her head at that moment.

She tugged him towards the bed and he hesitated at first until she pulled a little harder. He followed her carefully as she half-hopped on one leg to remove his cloak and clothes. She struggled with the layers of armour as he effortlessly peeled off a turtleneck and jeans. He took special attention to his positions and hands. Her leg gave her a hard time and he had to slow her down to not hurt herself. Her hands grabbed at what was still tangible; worried that he would disappear any moment.

Her hair spread like the sun behind her head, giving her a holy appearance as she slept.

He was comfortable, too comfortable as he laid beside her. He was fixated on her chest; watching it rise and fall with every breath. He turned away to lay on his back. He heard his communicator vibrate under his clothes and waited for it to stop before he let himself fall in a dreamless sleep.

The sound of her cane against the wooden floor became his indicator that Angela was awake. It awoke him at dawn as the little bit of sun shined through the thin beige curtains. As the stepping stopped, the coffee machine was turned on with the sound of light beeps and Angela trying to hush the appliance.

He left his uniform on the floor as he made his way down the steps to join her.

“ _Guten Morgen_ ,” she sang as she prepared a second cup. She was glowing in the sunlight that flooded into her kitchen.

He couldn’t keep his hands off of her. He wanted to smell her skin; feel the warmth of the blood that rushed through her veins. He kissed the curve of neck and made his way to her jawline, forcing little squeaks from her lips.

“You’re going to make me late for work,” she giggled as she took a sip of her coffee. She was blushing hard enough to make all her freckles and sunspots more apparent.

She was a literal angel compared to his life with Talon. He watched her wash up and get dressed in her hospital uniform. “The hospital needs Dr. Catarina Hartmann,” she told him as she finished off her routine by pulling her hair into a ponytail.

While she was away, he redressed and continued on with his duties with Talon. He had projects in Europe that needed to be dealt with. Sombra and Widowmaker were to meet him in Paris the next day

“Pitiful,” Amelie commented when he arrived to their destination. “Dr. Ziegler should’ve stayed dead.”

He ignored her as he continued on with their mission. He had almost forgotten who they were assassinating that day.

“Gabe, she is no good for you, she’s screwing you up! Focus!” Sombra spoke in her headset. He evaporated and snuck into The Louvre for a certain piece of technology that would be needed to secure information about underground terrorist groups that would push their goal further and back in the spotlight of international headlines.

The souls he consumed put him back on track and he was able to secure a group of rascals to join their team. Mission accomplished and he only had to kill 5 security guards in consequence for Sombra’s fooling around with the surveillance system.

It was apparent that his visits to Corsica had tainted his role as current leader of Talon. The lack of cooperation from other Talon members made it clear that he wasn’t trustworthy for his association with a former Overwatch agent. If only he didn’t resurrect her from her empty grave, maybe the mission would go smoother.

Angela thought about it long and hard as well, chain smoking a pack of cigarettes in hope of getting over her anxiety. Her work never suffered for silly things and maybe the new found stress made her a better surgeon.

“Catarina, you have the look of a young woman in love,” her favourite nurse told her in a harsh french accent. She was known at the hospital as the lonely orphan with only a love for medicine. It wasn’t a lie, but she never brought up much of her personal life.

“Love, it’s such a simple thing, but not at all,” she grinned as her nurse smile back before going to put on her attire for the upcoming surgery.

She was so lost in her thought that she forgot about the pain in her leg until she was halfway to the bathroom. She winced as she grabbed her leg to try to get herself to stand up straight again. With the other hand, she grabbed onto what she could until she was almost screaming in pain and she let herself fall to the floor. She let the pain subside a bit before she changed her direction to the pills on the table.

“Angela!” the familiar cloud of black smoke echoed as it became Gabriel under her. “Where is your cane?”

“I-I forgot it,” she replied as he carried her to the closest chair. She took deep breaths as the pain subsided. She felt the protectiveness radiate off of him as he ran his thumb across her cheek in hope of soothing her. She got up from her chair. He took hold of her upper arm. “I’m fine, Gabe. Just, let me get my cane myself.”  He slowly let go and let her limp over to get it.

They both felt the tension in the room, and they stood in silence before they could even acknowledge it. Angela limped back over to Gabriel and buried herself in his arms. He wrapped himself around her took in all of her.

“Maybe, I should’ve hid better,” she mumbled. He hugged her tighter. At that moment, he wanted to drop everything to be with her forever. He would hold her, keep her safe, keep her identity hidden, and heal with her.

“I am not proud of your association with Talon, but I am relieved that you still walk the Earth with me, “ she quivered. She tried to hold back her tears as much as she could. The sun was setting and the purples made the atmosphere more melancholic than it already was.

He was unable to cry. Instead, his being became fog on the floor. “Don’t stay with me. I’ll disappear,” she cried.

“You can’t keep me away,” he spoke.

“No, I can’t, and I don’t want to,” she sniffled.

He stayed the night anyways. Ignoring all the calls from his communicator for the last time. He loved her. He loved her once, he’ll love her then and forever. In the morning, he got dressed and left as if he was returning in a week when seasons passed.

Talon became stronger again with their leader back with his head on his shoulders. Terror reigned over Europe and other parts of the world. He was at his prime of his Talon career.

He broke their promise and returned on the anniversary of her fictional death to find her apartment empty. It made him anxious as he looked in every room for a trace of her but she was a professional of leaving nothing behind. All he found was an envelope on the nightstand that read:

“Do not fear, for I am alive.

Overwatch mustn't find me, but I know you can, my love.

See you soon, Angela”


End file.
